Pisa and The Square of Miracles

One thing we had to do while in the Tuscany region is visit Pisa. Yes, the same one that has the defective building that in the US, would have been demolished long ago and labeled an engineering disaster. Taking the train so I can kick back and enjoy the ride along with Mom-Bear.

Up early, again, drove down to Poggibonsi to the central station where there is free parking in their dirt lot. Can’t knock it, free parking in Italy is rare! Takes about 20 minutes from our apartment to reach the station so we’re there with plenty of time to spare. The train from here goes to a medium sized town named, “Empoli”, where we change trains to continue on to Pisa central station. Once there we will need to walk about 25 minutes or so to the Square of Miracles (Piazza dei Miracoli) where the Leaning Tower (Torre), the Cathedral and the Baptistery are located.

We purchased tickets to walk up the Tower and enter the Baptistery, with that the entry into the Cathedral is free. Well, almost free, we had to buy our tickets for the other sites, THEN, it was free! Tickets can be purchased 20 days prior to your visit so we snatched them up on September 1 before all the tour companies grabbed them. 9:45am for our walk up the Tower and the Baptistery is open anytime, if you have a ticket.

Pretty easy train ride, arrived in Pisa and fired up our Google Maps to start our journey to the square. Still early so it’s not all that hot, approximately 78F, but it’s supposed to get really warm today, high of 90F. Damn am I glad I bought those shorts! A Moo-Moo might have caused problems walking up the stairs, all 297 of them. Besides, Collette said my ass made the Moo-Moo look big.

In some ways, it’s a shame what our world has come to, distrust and fear are everywhere.  The Tower in Pisa is no different, absolutely no bags of any kind can be carried inside. They will permit a wallet-sized camera case but that’s the limit. There is free storage offered to those holding tickets but that isn’t clearly noted, just a simple statement on your ticket to report to the cloakroom 15 minutes before your touring time. The last time I was in a cloakroom it wasn’t pleasant so I sent Collette and held our place in line.

297 steps later, we’re at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Hot, sweaty, and needing a place to just sit down, take a bath with a handful of “wet ones” and catch our breath, we push through the Chinese taking selfies and find a bench, right under one of the bells. Not sure they use these anymore but if they do, there’s going to be plenty of room up top when they go off.

Views are amazing, but the real rush is actually standing on the top level of the Tower. Fun facts about the Tower

-started in 1173 as a bell tower, it wasn’t finished until 1399

-the Tower started leaning almost immediately (5 years) during construction due to the soil. On the leaning side, the soil has more sand and clay which is highly compressible. During the “rainy season” the tower actually leans more due to the water rising on the upward side.

-High side of the tower is ~186’ tall; low side 183’. Originally it was 197’ tall.

-Diameter of the tower (at the base) is ~52’.

Although this is the best  known of the “leaners”, there are others in Pisa, such as the Pisa Cathedral and Pisa Baptistery, the bell tower at church of St. Nicola, and the one at the church of St. Michele dei Scalzi.

Cooled off so now it’s time to slowly walk back down. With regulated times for touring, it does help a bit with congestion. There’s only one stairway, and it’s narrow, so both up and down traffic moves slowly at times.

Once outside we made our way to the Baptistery of St. John. Started 20 years prior to the Tower, 1153, the Baptistery is built in classic Romanesque style with semi-circular arches and symmetrical facade. The interior is surprisingly plain, with the exception of the pulpit and baptismal font, the later of which has a bronze statue of St. John the Baptist.

One unique feature of this structure is the acoustics. From not much more than a whisper, the sound can be heard everywhere in the building. While we were there, a young lady, called a “guardian”, demonstrated this feature by softly singing a hymn. Amazing! I swear she was hardly speaking and it was as clear as if she was standing next to us. And, another uniqueness about this baptistery, it’s where Galileo was baptized.

Getting close to lunch time and the tour groups have descended on the area so time to move on. We’re going to grab something to eat, then we’ll see if we can find Galileo’s Garden home.

Strolling along the Arno river after lunch, it’s hot. Temp has caught up with us, 90F, so let’s make this search fast. Found it, but it looks more like Galileo’s apartment than anything else. Guess over time things were changed and the “garden” is now a street, the house is now a row house and damn, it’s hot so good enough, time to head back to the train station and into some air conditioning. Going to enjoy that ride home!

Few more pics of Pisa